Wizard for Hire

by Jack Simmonds

  “Because?” said Felix.

  “The freak... he can do things, like magic. Real magic. He walked in here bold as brass one night, he was scary. I got this cold, bad vibe from him. He had a meeting with Jonnie. He was so angry, you could feel his anger.”

  “I know,” said Felix in a soothing motion, rubbing her shoulder. Tears had formed in her beautiful eyes and threatened to fall.

  She continued in a shaky voice. “I told them not to rob Icarus Garden Bank! Honestly I did. But he was hell-bent on doing it. He wouldn’t take notice of me anyway, I am just his trophy wench. Amongst the cash and jewellery was a ring…”

  Felix sighed. “And unbeknown to you, this freak broke in the very same night looking for that ring?”

  “How do you know that?” She said, eyes swimming up to Felix.

  “Kriston worked for you didn’t he?”

  Sharon nodded. “Yeah he worked for us. Or so we thought. No one knew that he was actually an undercover cop, we only found that out when he was found murdered.”

  “Was Kriston involved in the bank robbery?”

  “No. He stayed in the office with the boss and me. When the guys brought the loot up to Jonnie’s office, I nearly fainted, I mean I had never seen so much gold or so many diamonds.”

  She pulled out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “Kriston was there to help catalogue the loot. He must have stolen the ring for himself. Which wasn’t like him, he was nice.”

  “Rings like that one are rings of power,” said Felix. “They command to be held, he would have picked it up and felt an uncontrollable need to keep it for himself. It’s not his fault.”

  Just at that moment we heard before we saw them, the gangsters were back. They looked annoyed, confused and out of breath.

  “We don’t have long,” I said.

  Felix leaned closer still to Sharon. “What happened with this freak, he came here didn’t he?”

  Sharon nodded. “The next day. The freak turned up, demanded a private meeting with Jonnie. How he knew it was him that organised the robbery I just don’t know. Jonnie’s so careful. If Giancarlo finds out that it leaked, Jonnie is a dead man.”

  “Giancarlo?” said Felix.

  “Giancarlo Vitalie, the owner of this casino, Jonnie’s boss. He’s Italian Mafia.” Felix puffed his cheeks out in surprise. “The bank job was already compromised, because they hot sdead a security guard, and to think he promised me no violence!” she said sobbing into her tissue. “I didn't want any of this.”

  Felix rubbed the top of the glass again, with a cursory glance at the gangsters who were now peering about the Casino. “What happened in the meeting with the freak and Jonnie?”

  “He said that he wanted the ring back and searched through the loot, but when he couldn’t find it he got angry, thought Jonnie was trying to dupe him. They put 2 and 2 together and realised that Kriston was the only one who hadn’t turned up. Things got messy, Jonnie was pissed that the freak was talking to him like he owned him, they thought he was just a nut, but the freak knew it was Jonnie that broke in, so they had to tread lightly, he could snitch on them. One of the boys tried to shoot the freak and…”

  “Go on…”

  “He stopped it. With magic. The bullet went through the window. Then he killed three of Jonnie’s boys. Said it was a message, that he wanted the address of Kriston and that Jonnie must work to find the ring or we would all die. Jonnie was freaked-out, we all were, we had never seen real magic like that. I mean he made a ball of fire blow a hole right through Johnnie's boys chests! And I can’t get that image out my head!” she sobbed.

  “I know, I know,” said Felix comfortingly.

  All of a sudden, I felt a large, strong pair of hands land on my shoulders. Twelve gangsters had descended upon us. I just had time to see their brutish faces as a fist the size of a dinner plate connected hard and fast with my nose.

  Three more thuds and a ‘argggh’ sound from Felix, told me he had received the same treatment. In one sharp movement we were both picked up, hoisted over a shoulder and carried away. I couldn’t see the reaction of the casino clientele for my face hurt so much my eyes wouldn’t open. All I could hear was scuffling, and Sharon apologising as she was dragged along behind us.

  This was bad. Terribly, terribly bad.

  23

  “Bring Me Felix Freeman”

  We were handled forcibly and without due care, my head was already smarting from the punch, whacked into the wall as we were carried upstairs. The man carrying me didn’t seem to notice.

  Soon enough, we were carried into a quiet upstairs room, far away from the noise and bustle below. I heard Felix land with a thud in front of me, before I too was dropped unceremoniously.

  As my eyes came to view the world in its originally intended orientation, I saw myself sitting in a plush office with wood panelled walls, bookshelves stacked high with leather backed books that looked untouched. It wouldn’t be a true gangster’s office without some kind of weapon too, would it? Three samurai swords took pride of place behind a huge wooden desk. It was exactly how I would imagined a gangster’s office.

  “Gentlemen,” said a man’s voice. “You have caused me quite a bit of bother.” He spoke with a deep cockney accent.

  Looking up, I saw him step around the side of his enormous desk. He wasn’t particularly tall, but held himself with authority. A tight fitting white shirt also told me he worked out a lot, but that was the extent of my deductions. He had his hair pulled back behind his head, which he now pulled a comb through like this was 1960’s America.

  Felix sat panting on the floor, why wasn’t he getting his wand out and doing something? Then it struck me, as I sat watching him do nothing I realised he must have planned for this. He wanted to come up here, so he was just making it look like it was their decision.

  Sharon burst into the room behind us. “I’m sorry Jonnie!” she cried. “I didn’t know, honestly I—”

  “I’ll deal with you later! GO!” cried Johnnie. So that’s who he was, Jonnie Reed, the infamous London gangster. Not a nice man, not at all. And now here I was, sitting bleeding on his lovely soft cream carpet.

  He gave some kind of a signal to the brutes behind us. A second later and all I could feel was fists.

  “AHH!” Felix and I screamed as the men descended on us. I felt three hard punches to the face, five to the stomach which made me retch and a hard kick to the back.

  After a few seconds of agony, I lay motionless in the foetal position and as useless as a newborn. Wave upon wave of pain reverberated around my body. I couldn’t catch my breath either, having had it punched out of me.

  The next moment, I felt myself being hoisted up by my hair til I was standing next to Felix, whose bloody nose dripped in a line down his face and neck.

  Why wasn’t he getting his wand out?

  “I am Jonnie Reed,” said the man sitting on the end of his desk. “And I run this manor. So I don’t like little small timers like yourselves, coming in and messing things up.” He ran his palm under his stubbly chin. “We heard you talking to Sharon.”

  “How?” said Felix, breath constricted.

  “Microphones under all the tables,” Jonnie grinned. “Never know when you might be able to use something someone lets slip. This city breathes corruption, information is currency.”

  Jonnie poured himself a glass of whisky and drank. All I could think was that I wanted to go home and curl up into a ball, to rid myself of this terrible pain—and if we said the wrong things (which was likely, as I was in the company of the bipolar wizard), then we could face more damage.

  “I got this nice little present today,” said Jonnie reaching over his desk and holding up a large cardboard box. “Know what’s inside it?”

  Felix and I shook our heads, it hurt.

  “It’s a severed head of one my boys,” said Jonnie who was not joking, for the next second, he pulled it up by the hair. I felt like vomiting, as if my stomach didn’t hurt enough
already. It’s something seeing a decapitated head in films, but in real-life it does things to you, I forced myself to just pretend it wasn’t real.

  “What are those markings?” said Felix pointing towards what looked like black tattoos all over the face.

  “I don’t know, but I imagine it’s something to do with the fucking freak who said he’s gonna kill one of my boys a week until I get his fucking ring back!” Jonnie screamed into the ceiling, before punching the desk. “He told me that we would pay for robbing that bank. Doesn’t he think I’ve paid enough?”

  Jonnie looked unhinged. I mean to be a gangster you’ve got to have a few screws loose anyway, but right now he looked on the border of insanity.

  “Could have just given him the ring that would have solved this whole mess. What’s one poxy ring anyway? But no… fucking Kriston, the snake! He did me, he fucked me! If he weren’t dead already, I’d skin him alive.”

  “Lovely image,” Felix muttered.

  “But no,” Jonnie continued. “It vanished didn’t it? And now, the freak won’t stop until we are all wiped out.”

  “Why you telling us all this?” said Felix.

  “WHY?” Johnnie cried.

  Felix sighed. “You’re scared of him. This man—”

  “Scared of him? No. We’re pissed. Because it ain’t fair son. At least with gang warfare it’s a level playing field. He made three of my men drop dead in this room. Blew a hole straight through them. How are we supposed to compete against that kind of madness! And he deflected a fucking bullet shot from five yards away, out the fucking window!”

  His hands were shaking, but he managed to take a big sip of whisky.

  “You’re here, because you… tossers! went and stole the ring from him didn’t you?! It could have all been over by now. But no, he thought I had something to do with telling you who had it, no one else knew, he said. Well now it’s your turn to make amends.”

  “Make amends?” Felix said incredulous, he just did not sense danger at all. “You’re the idiots that robbed that bank and took the Creep’s ring! If you hadn’t been greedy, none of this would have ever happened.”

  Jonnie waved a hand dismissively. “We’ve been trying to find you for ages. But you were harder to find than we expected.”

  “I know a few tricks,” Felix grinned.

  “This freak—”

  “Lets just call him by his real name, Edward Rappaport.”

  Jonnie sniffed. “Is that who he is? Don’t I know that name?”

  “He was an ex-politician,” I offered.

  Jonnie wrinkled his nose. “Don’t like politicians, only like em’ if I can get dirt on them. Other than that, don’t take much notice.”

  “They’re right,” said a deep voice behind us. One of the bald headed gangsters. “Now I remember. He wanted to run for Prime Minister, but he had a personal tragedy.”

  “Correct,” said Felix. “Well done…”

  “Taylor, Sir.”

  “Well done Taylor.”

  Taylor beamed at Felix’s praise, before Jonnie waved his arms around until he had full attention. “Yes, yes if you’ve all quite finished! This Edward told us that you have the ring, and unless we get it off you then we will all die, including our fucking families.”

  Felix bit his lip in thought.

  “We just wanna’ be left alone,” said Taylor. “No more magic, no more freaks, no more rings.”

  “Exactly. We need you to give the freak back his ring. In exchange I’ll give ya’ whatever ya both want.”

  Felix caught my eye, and looked solemn, he was about to deliver bad news. But didn’t know how best to relay it. I don’t know why he looked at me, I wasn’t well versed in giving bad news to gagsters.

  Felix rolled his head. “I can’t.”

  Jonnie was just about to explode into why the fuck nots!?! Before Felix continued. “I can’t help you by giving the ring to Edward, for many reasons…”

  “You looking for a slap?” Jonnie said.

  “Listen to me,” Felix said. “I can’t give the ring to Edward, but I can help you… for a price.”

  Now it made sense, why Felix took a beating to come here — he was touting for business! I would rightfully stake a claim to at least 50% of whatever they gave him after the beating I had just endured, I hadn’t been beaten up that badly since… well, ever.

  “You want me to pay you to protect us?” said Jonnie to a small round of titters.

  “Yeah,” said Felix slightly confused by the bemusement. “You know I am a wizard too right?”

  Taylor, the big ugly bald gangster was thinking, I could almost see the cogs turning in his brain. “So, you could protect us from this man? How?”

  “Think about it…” said Felix with more confidence than he really should have in a situation like this. “Let's say you do get the ring from me, unlikely, but let’s just say. You give Edward the ring and what happens next? He says oh thanks for that guys, have a good life.”

  Their brains were whirring. “He’s a Creep, he’s driven by revenge and black magic. He doesn’t have time for petty deals and squabbles and possible grasses. He will just get rid of you all, make it look like a… gang war. Soon as you hand over that ring, you will all be dead. Guaranteed.”

  Jonnie rubbed his eyes, deep in thought, Felix’s words seemingly making sense to him. “And you can do what exactly to help us?”

  Felix tapped his wand on his leg. “I can stop him. In fact, I am your last hope.”

  There was a long pause, and for a moment I thought Felix had done it—convinced the gang to pay him to protect them.

  But a second later we were disturbed with news that would change all of that.

  The doors burst open, it was the casino manager, a young Spanish fellow, face plastered with terror.

  “What is it?” Jonnie cried, annoyed at being disturbed.

  “Sir, it’s…” he paused for breath. “It’s coming inside—”

  Jonnie cried. “What is? What is?”

  “The paint.”

  We all looked at the man with bemusement, for the life of me I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but whatever it was seemed to be terrifying the man to the core.

  “Paint? What paint? Explain man!” Jonnie screamed.

  The casino manager trembled a bit more. “Outside sir, there is paint that just appeared on all the buildings, and then a few moments ago it started to seep into the casino, it’s everywhere… we can’t stop it… it’s as if it’s… magic.”

  Jonnie ran to the nearby window and looked out. “It’s him. He knows you’re here!”

  “Christ,” said Felix running up to the window.

  The entirety of Leicester Square was painted thick with glowing neon paint, it was on the buildings, the floor, the trees, it was everywhere. It was as if an army of a thousand graffiti artists had swarmed in and done it. But that wasn’t the scary part. The scary part was what was painted:

  BRING ME FELIX FREEMAN

  Repeated itself all the way around the square. And it had gathered attention. Everyone in the Square was looking around for the apparent invisible culprits. But they wouldn’t find any. This was done by magic.

  A huge arrow suddenly appeared under the words BRING ME FELIX FREEMAN.

  “He wants you to go to him,” I said.

  Felix sighed. “I don’t like this, it’s all on his terms.”

  Jonnie squealed like a girl. More words appeared.

  OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY.

  “That’s what he used to say to me,” said Jonnie who looked to be on the border of tears.

  Felix bit his thumb, deep in thought, before looking at me. I wish he didn't, it made me nervous. I didn’t know what to do. But whatever was happening, it didn’t feel good. Not one bit.

  “Can’t you just kill him with magic?” said Jonnie, suddenly taking on the appearance of a toddler.

  Felix tutted. “Your knowledge of magic is about as feeble as Nortons.”<
br />
  “Cheers,” I muttered.

  “Edward is a skilled black magic practitioner, his magic trumps mine any day. I don’t practice black magic.”

  Jonnie grimaced. “So you’re saying he’s more powerful than you?”

  “Sort of,” Felix admitted in a small voice.

  “Then why the fuck are you trying to get me to pay you for protection?!”

  “Maybe,” Felix said coming nose to nose with Jonnie, “because some magic is better than no magic!”

  A deep booming noise echoed out suddenly from the square. It came from a large maniacal face appeared in the glowing paint. It was Edward. It was so terrifying that is caused all those curious enough to stick around to run for their lives and hide.

  “BRING ME FELIX FREEMAN. OR THEIR WILL BE HELL TO PAY… JONNIE REED.”

  Jonnie screamed with fright, this had obviously tipped him over the edge of mania. All of a sudden, he clicked his fingers. The twelve burly gangsters jumped across the room at me and Felix. And again, we were held in the grip of the muscular men.

  “Jonnie what are you doing?!” Felix cried. “I thought we had an understanding!”

  “You’re not powerful enough to stop him or save us,” said Jonnie. “This is the only way. Boys, take him to see the freak.”

  “NOO!” Felix screamed. “You’re making a terrible mistake!”

  24

  Ring on the Rooftop

  For a moment Johnnie looked so crazed with stress I thought he may take out a gun and shoot us right there and then. He saw this as his only opportunity to rid himself of Edward, or the freak, or the weirdo, or the creep, whatever you wanted to call him. I understood his predicament, if I was in the same situation I would have done the same thing. However this didn’t help, me and Felix struggled against strong grip.

  Felix was apoplectic with rage that he was about to be taken forcefully to meet the Creep, and struggled with all his might to free himself. Didn’t he understand? The harder he struggled, the harder the gangsters would hold him.